Guest lecture with prof. Orlando Rojas
See the guest lecture with prof. Orlando Rojas University of British Columbia, Vancouver. The title of the presentation is Plant nanomaterials and inspiration from Nature. Prof. Rojas is invited by prof. Magnus Norgren and prof. Håkan Edlund.
Orlando Rojas, has been appointed with the highest academic ranks, namely, Finland Distinguish Professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair in Forest Bioproducts. For his international leadership, he holds honorific affiliations with 7 universities around the globe (Asia, Europe, North America and South America). Prof. Rojas is elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. He has achieved important impacts in his capacity as former PI of the largest flagship program in Finland, the FinnCERES cluster between VTT and Aalto University, whose mission is to advance the future forest-based materials bioeconomy.
Among his current roles in Canada, he is scientific director of the Bioproducts Institute, which affiliates ca. 40 professors while holding professor appointments with the departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chemistry and Wood Science. Prof. Rojas is recipient of the 2018 Anselme Payen Award, the highest recognition in the area of cellulose and renewable materials and has been distinguished by the Tappi organization with the Renewable Nanotechnology Award.
He is part of the selection committee of the Wallenberg Award (the Nobel prize in the area of forest technologies) and is Emeritus Editor in Chief of the Journal Dispersion Science and Technology and Associate editor of Biomacromolecules, along with activities as board member of more than 10 journals and companies.
With close to 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles, Prof. Rojas is the most prolific author in the areas covering cellulose nanofibrils and nanocrystals, bringing the topic of forest products to journal outlets of the highest impact, including Nature, Nature Comm, JACS, Chem. Rev, ACS Nano, Adv. Mat., Science Advances, among others. During the last 10 years, his research team, the Bio-based Colloids and Materials group, has received upwards of 3 million dollars annually to catalyze fundamental and applied research. The core of his research deals with colloids and micro/nano-structures derived from renewable materials and their utilization in multiphase systems. Prof. Rojas is an established figure in academia and industry, best exemplified by his recent involvement in the foundation of the Boreal Alliance between Canada, Finland and Sweden, which is the largest research cluster in Forest Products, aiming at creating cross-disciplinary and cross border solutions and handprints in response to global challenges.
